The Boy Who Made Dragonfly (1972)

Anthropologically, a tribe is a group of people united based on their social organization, belief systems, family relationships, common geneology, and shared language and culture. A more conservative definition includes the caveat that the peoples who live as tribes operate self-sufficiently in their social groups outside of mainstream society and developed as a distinct people many generations ago, before the modern incoporation of nation-states. A more general definition, on the other hand, opens up the meaning to include any groups of people who are united to one another with a collective leader and idea. This can extend beyond ancient peoples to include bands of people that form to collaborate on issues or even behind a music group.

In the United States, the term is probably most familiar in reference to Native American tribes. There are 562 federally recognized Indian tribes, and many others that have not yet achieved federal recognition. 229 of these tribes are located in what is now Alaska, and the others are spread over the United States, some much larger than others. Some tribes have formed distinct, sovereign nations that span multiple states.

These tribes have their own customs, traditions, spiritual views, origin stories, languages, and ways of life developed over thousands of years, long before European settler colonialism.

The more conservative definition of a tribe that specifies the people as living outside mainstream society is not fully appropriate when discussing Native American tribes in what are now the United States. In many cases, tribes have adapted their traditional practices to contemporary times, and many tribal members do not necessarily live in the same place as the majority of their tribe (in the US, often on federally-designated reservations). However, they can still considered a part of the community.

In Hillerman's Boy Who Made Dragonfly this is a Zuni word used to express approval of or agreement with a spoken statement. The spelling of the term may vary in different contexts, or it may be that Hillerman has invented this expression based on his knowkledge of the Zuni language.

The Navajo, also known by their preferred name, the Diné, are the largest federally recognized Native American tribe in the United States. Their reservation is spread out throughout the Four Corners region of the American Southwest, and includes portions of the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.

The Navajo base their way of life on a belief that the physical and spiritual world blend together and everything on earth is alive, related, and in equilibrium, also known as ho′zho′. In this light, the Navajo observe two primary ceremonials, among many others. The first is the Blessing Way, which keeps them on the path of wisdom and happiness. The second is the Enemy Way, which is meant to discourage evil spirits, eliminate ghosts, and cleanse an individual of elements or affects that have placed her or him out of balance.

Mule deer are easy to identify due to their large mule-like ears. They are brownish-gray in color, have a white rump patch, and a small white tail with a black tip. There are believed to be several subspecies, including the black-tailed deer. They do not run as other deer, but have a distinctive bounding leap that can cover distances up to 8 yards.

In several Pueblo traditions, the Mudhead Clown is a masked figure who works as disciplinarian, joker, and village cryer. The early Hopi variation of this figure is called Tachukti, meaning “Ball-On-Head”; however, around 1860 the Zuni variation, known as Koyemsi or Koyemshi, rose to prominence in cultural studies of the western Pueblos. The anglicized term "Mudhead Clown" derives from the appearance of the Koyemsi mask, which is covered with loosely-formed mud balls that form vaguely human-like features. Mudhead Clowns can be garbed in a black dress with a red or brown-clay painted body.

According to the Zuni origin legends, the father or head Koyemsi incestuously produced nine children with his sister. In his remorse for this heinous act the father beat himself and rolled in the mud until his head was covered in bulbous welts coated in mud. Upon their birth, the children of this union resembled their father, appearing with faces and bodies disorted by various mud-covered protuberances. The incestuous nature of their conception bars the Koyemsi from becoming kachinas themselves. Instead, they act in secondary roles, such as spokespersons for the other kachinas. While neither a priest nor ceremonial dancer, the Mudhead Clown is a part of many social gatherings, performing as curers, directors, warriors, messengers, sages, and tricksters.

At the end of Hillerman's 1973 re-telling of the Zuni origin story The Boy who made Dragon Fly, when the wise boy claims that some day his little sister will become the Mother of Seed, he is suggesting that she will be considered the spiritual mother of the Zuni, who sometimes refer to themselves as "seed," or corn kernels.

The Zuni phrase Halona I'tawana translates as the "Middle Place," and was so named by the Zuni because of its significance as the temporal, spatial, and ceremonial center of Zuni life. The Middle Place is the current site of Zuni Pueblo in western New Mexico, a place that has been continuously inhabited by the Zuni since the water spider K'yhan'asdebi flexed his legs in six directions (the four cardinal directions and up and down). The center of the Middle Place was delineated by the spot where K'yhan'asdebi's heart lay over the land.

Zuni myth recounts that the original Zuni people, or A'shiwi, traveled from the western lands of their gods and the spirits of their ancestors to dicover the Middle Place. After a long and arduous journey of many trials and tribulations, the A'shiwi or Zuni finally discovered the Middle Place. Having learned much along their travels, the Zuni were prepared to settle and build a properous and peaceful life.

Also referenced as a meal stone by Hillerman, a metate is a slab of rock with either a concave or flat surface that is used for manually grinding grain, ochre, or other plant and mineral products. The mealing of grain, seeds, or sometimes even coffee on a metate is done using a mano, which is a smaller stone that is pressed back-and-forth horizontally or in a circular motion against the surface of the stone slab. The term metate comes from the word metatl, which is a term used in Mexico by indigenous peoples to describe these artifacts. Additionally, the term mano comes from the Spanish word for “hand.” Through both archaeological excavations and modern ethnography, it is known that metates have been in continuous use for thousands of years.

In North America, metates were already an important tool used by indigenous people prior to the introduction of corn from Mesoamerica. Metates first appear in the American Southwest during the Early Archaic Period (8,500 BP – 5,500 BP) and mark the transition from Paleoindian Period to the Archaic Period. Dubbed “site furniture” by former UNM professor of anthropology, Lewis Binford, these grinding implements were often left behind, due to their size and weight, in even the most transitory processing camps. Upon the introduction and spread of domesticated corn, the metates became larger and more trough-like, their deep basins allowing for the mass processing of maize. Metates became a common household tool, especially in Mexico and what is now the Southwestern U.S., where it was primarily the women's responsibility to grind corn into coarse meal for making tortillas, small unleavened pieces of bread, which are a staple food in the region. In modern archaeology, phytolith, pollen, and macro-botanical analysis can be conducted using the plant and mineral residue on metates to reconstruct prehistoric diets.

Ha'wi-k'uh, the ancestral village of the Zuni founded in the 1400s, was the largest of the Zuni pueblos, and the first pueblo to be seen by Spanish explorers. Originally thought to be one of the fabled gold Cities of Cíbola, Ha'wi-k'uh was conquered by Coronado in 1540 and served as his headquarters for several months. Ha'wi-k'uh was permanently abandoned after the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. In its prime, Ha'wi-k'uh had up to 150 rooms surrounding a central plaza and stood four stories high, with multiple numbers of kivas and a population between 500 to 700 individuals. Although Ha'wi-k'uh is now a series of ruins that run along a ridge several miles south of the current thriving pueblo, it remains an important cultural site for the Zuni and is an integral component in many of their migration and origin stories, ceremonies, and prayers.

The ruins of Ha'wi-k'uh were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961.

A flat-topped hill or plateau of rock with one or more steep sides, usually rising abruptly from a surrounding plain. Commonly found in arid environments, mesas are formed by the erosion of horizontally layered rocks that have been pushed above the surface of the earth by tectonic activity.